I belong to two book clubs. Recently one of them decided to read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as a sort of Halloween seasonal choice, and to go see the play, Young Frankenstein, which is still playing in Chicago.
By the way, the monster we call Frankenstein is a misnomer. His creator’s name was Frankenstein; nonetheless, I will refer to the monster as Frankenstein.
I have a history with the dreaded Frankenstein character. Two of my sisters were teenagers when I was born. When I was about 5 or 6, they took me to see Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. I’m sure they assumed it was a comedy.
(May I insert here that Lou Costello’s “Who’s On First?” is my all-time favorite comedy sketch?)
In one of the scenes Costello’s character is rummaging through a casket, lifts a handful of straw and uncovers the face of the Frankenstein monster in a close-up, full-size on the screen. I was traumatized. I don’t think I slept for a year, but I could be wrong.
Decades later, Mary Shelley’s beautifully written and very readable masterpiece got me to musing about the similarities between Donald Trump and the Frankenstein monster. One is a figment of Mary Shelley’s imagination; the other is a monster walking among us, bullying the boobs who love him, scaring the daylights out of the rest of us, and using fear in his need to wrest another term in office as the most powerful man in the world.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein monster wanders all over northern Europe, by day wreaking untold destruction, fires and floods, at night hiding and weeping about being unloved.
Like the fictional Frankenstein, Trump is angry and resentful about his loss of power, and is restlessly charging around the country on a mission to punish the people who made it happen (“I’m your retribution!”) and to secure a return to power.
Try this quote from the fictional Frankenstein: “Slave, I have reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master; obey!”
That last sentence makes my hair stand on end.
Am I too unkind if I say Trump actually looks a bit like Frankenstein? His head is square-ish. The strawberry blonde hair (can’t someone tell him that Mike Pence’s white hair was OK?) and the orangey pancake makeup do not fool anyone but him. The hair is definitely thinning and must take a long time to apply in the morning. His eyes are angry slits and when he’s not talking, he always looks angry.
It seems like a long time since Trump has smiled. When he’s in court, his stare is scary (he hopes). When he looks into the camera, his stare is mournful and really angry. Perhaps his face is frozen in the scowl of disappointment. He really wanted us to love him.
From what I’ve read, Trump was a fairly low-key and decent student in prep school. He wasn’t a leader, but he seemed to get along with others. The misery might have been created by his father, who encouraged conflict and competition between his sons.
Donald worked very hard in New York real estate and developed a reputation for ruthlessness.
Trumpenstein’s recent Christmas message is mind-boggling in its viciousness:
He wished a Merry Christmas to “World Leaders, both good and bad, but none of which are as evil and ‘sick’ as the Thugs we have inside our Country. … May they rot in hell.”
Note the following from Shelley’s Frankenstein:
“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”
“Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful.”